At the beginning of may I went to Saxon Switzerland with my buddies Alex and Jan with the hope to get some impressions of spring back home. Besides driving to some locations with the car we went on a 3 day hike in the park. We got really lucky with the weather, on the first two mornings we had beautiful layers of fog covering the lower areas of the park and during the day we had warm and sunny weather, perfect for hiking.

I’m already sure to go back there in autumn to get some shots with a different palette of colours.

Here are the first shots I’ll add to the gallery:

Castle in the Sky / Tenkuu no Shiro RapyutaCan you spot the castle in the sky far away?
The title has been obviously inspired by one of the best anime I've ever seen, directed by genius Hayao Miyazaki.
I took this image close to the famous Bastei​ in the Saxon Switzerland​ national park. Can it get any better when you have those conditions after the first night?

FogtownThe river Elbe did an amazing job cloaking the towns around the riverbed in beautiful fog. A view which is not so rare in the Elbsandsteingebirge - Sächsische Schweiz national park.

Mighty WehlnadelAfter scouting this place in the night, Alex and I only had left a few hours of sleep before heading out again to be in time for blue hour and sunrise. On the next morning we woke up to beautiful foggy conditions. We already expected fog but didn't imagine such a dense layer of fog, which was a nice welcome surprise on our first day in the Elbsandsteingebirge - Sächsische Schweiz.

Bridging the GapThis is a rather classic view you get in the Elbsandsteingebirge - Sächsische Schweiz, a view towards the famous Schrammsteine. Nevertheless I was very intrigued to frame the setting sun in the rock crevice when I saw this location the first time.
Those 5 days in the national park have been very successful in terms of pictures, having nice company by my friends Alex and Jan was just the icing on the cake 😉

Secrets in the MistOn that very morning I was incredible lucky, the mist stayed in the valley for a long time so that I was able to capture several angles of that valley close to the famous Bastei in the Saxon Switzerland national park. There are more fog pictures in the pipeline, I hope you can bear it and don't get bored quickly 😉

Gloomy GorgeDuring the first day when we arrived in Bohemian Switzerland we had plenty of rain and an overcast sky. Good for us, because we had the ideal conditions to pay the Kamnitz Gorge (Edmundsklamm) a visit and were blessed with beautiful lush and saturated colours.
Because we went to the gorge quite late, like only a few minutes before sunset, we had the gorge to ourselves. Therefore we could totally enjoy the peaceful atmosphere there.

I almost forgot to also upload the rest of the pictures from 2015 of the “Beautiful Germany” Landscapes category. Especially the picture “Gently Touched” has a special meaning for me and remembers me of a good time and days of pure happiness together with an important person in my life. Enjoy!

Mysterious FogAnd here comes a fresh shot from tonight’s moody scene in the local forests, close to my home. Of course I'll continue uploading the rest of my Iceland pictures later!
After doing a fog timelapse (youtu.be/3_ZXh367AAQ) I went back to the forest because the fog totally blocked the view over the scenery I wanted to take more pictures of. Because it was already quite dark I had to expose for over 6 minutes to get in enough light. I had to use the flashlight of my mobile to find back the way to my car and when I arrived at the car I noticed I came back with only my tripod and the camera fixed on it, but my backpack was still in the forest, so I had to walk back all the way again in an already pitch-black and misty forest. Wow, this was a really spooky mood 😉

Gently TouchedWhile I was browsing my archive I found a shot from November 2014 which I really liked but never intended to upload.
For me the picture has a special meaning and remembers me of a good time and days of pure happiness.

Morning GlowThe first upload from the recent hike to Mohnenfluh summit with a bunch of befriended fellow photographers.
We were camping close to the lake and had to get up at around 3:30am in order to be at the summit to photograph the sunrise.
Every time you witness a sunset from a mountain summit you get this amazing feeling, you are far away from civilization, it's peaceful and quiet and you have an amazing view, while the sun cloaks the landscape in beautiful hues, the type of palette you can't see during the day.

Mohnenfluh PanoramaAnother sunrise view from Mohnenfluh, this time as a wide 3:1 panorama over the Lechquellen area.

Iceland is full of natural wounds, two of them are waterfalls and canyons, there are just so many.

One of these rather popular canyons has a name which is really hard to pronounce, it’s called Fjaðrárgljúfur, one of my favorites (3rd image).

Canyon NightfallTo reach this waterfall we spend almost half the day cruising around on rough roads and fording several rivers. Ok, maybe we also killed some of that time during our personal hygiene routine in one of the icecold rivers we just were about to cross 😀
Around 4pm we finally arrived and spend the next hours scouting the location and having a nap in the car. Just at the right time when the sun was about to set we were back at the locations we scouted earlier. I picked this one because I liked the serene mood of the canyon during dawn, of course I've got away with some sunset shots too.

Black FallThat's exactly the name of this prominent waterfall in Iceland, or Svartifoss in Icelandic language.
The waterfall is surrounded by dark basalt columns, which gave rise to its name. These lava rock formations are quite common in Iceland, I have seen them in so many other parts of the country, they were even subject to inspiration for architects who used these hexagonal shaped columns as exterior elements at Hallgrímskirkja, a popular church in the capital Reykjavík.
As a tribute to the name of this beautiful waterfall I decided to do a B/W conversion and think it suits the waterfall very well 😉

Green CanyonAnother canyon, this time a rather popular one, with name which is really hard to pronounce, it's called Fjaðrárgljúfur.
We woke up quite early to photograph the sunset at this location, for me on this morning it was really difficult to get up, Alex was already setting up his tripod while I was still in the car muffled up in my sleeping bag 😉
Unfortunately we figured out too late that the view we had at this canyon is far from ideal to catch the very beautiful sunrise over the canyon, so in the end we got a few good shots but regretted that we decided to stay there for the sunrise, we could have been already at far better places for sunrise pictures. Actually it was my fault because I liked the canyon very much and persuaded Alex to stay there and wait for sunrise 😉